California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law AB 2770. The bill, which will go into effect Jan. 1, 2019, protects employers from defamation claims when advising a prospective employer that the applicant was the subject of a credible sexual harassment claim. Employers currently are prohibited from non-malicious references regarding the job performance or qualifications […]

The Work Number employee portal at Equifax was taken offline for servicing on Oct. 8 and the company continues to work to add new security features and restore its full-access. The servicing was in response to potential security vulnerabilities in a browser-based portal of its employment verification service. The additional security enhancements are designed to […]

SkillSurvey recently undertook a large text analytics project that investigated open-ended comments from job references. The examination of 20,000 references reinforced the idea that references for a potential hire should come not only from former managers, but co-workers, as well. In areas of improvement, coworkers most often cited employees as being too helpful, poor at […]

Sarah Baldeo of ISB Canada finds it interesting the number of human resource leaders who do not see any value in performing criminal background checks. Some, she said, regard them as being superfluous and believe that reference checks are sufficient when verifying information. Some have even made the argument that they can verify references through […]

Although most employers dismiss reference calls as an outdated and highly biased part of the screening process, they can provide invaluable insight that can’t be obtained through interviews and background checks. Businesses should start with a purpose by understanding what information they are seeking. They also should know the best person to talk to. Employers […]

Thinking about skipping the Professional Reference Check? Think again. Job applicants will go to great lengths to make a good impression and, while a Professional Reference Check may support the reasons this person is great, it can also reveal negative details your applicant may not disclose on his or her own. In fact, references are […]

Personnel Screening Helpdesk conducted a study of the degree verification practices of major universities in the world. Out of the 50 sampled universities, 33 of them have outsourced their verification services to third party agents. These agents included the following: National Student Clearinghouse (“NSC”) (in the United States) Higher Education Degree Datacheck (“HEDD”) (in the […]

Reference checking is the bane of many an HR professional’s existence. A solution, online reference checking, is now at hand. Every human resource executive is well aware of the problems related to reference checking — the seemingly interminable phone tag, the equivocal responses, and the difficulty comparing references coming from different referrers of different candidates. […]

Reference checks have been neglected, ostracized and even banned in some companies. It appears that reference checks are increasingly perceived as a liability to an organization, which has resulted in a direct contradiction; “We want to receive references but we won’t give them.” A reference check is the final step to ensure a great decision […]

By Barry Hartstein and Corinn Jackson, Littler Mendelson, P.C. Employers today are faced with a hiring conundrum. Employers desire as much information as possible about a candidate in order to make a well-informed hiring decision. Those very same employers, however, are frequently wary about releasing information about a former employee to a prospective employer based […]